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Hardcore music reared it’s ugly head after punk rock hit in the late 1970’s. Hardcore had a new sound, a new look, and a new aggression that swept over the nation, with hundreds of bands emerging in cities all over the United States and beyond. Each city had their own crop of bands, their own ‘zines, their own labels, and most importantly their own scene.
Radio Silence is a visual history of American hardcore that documents the words and images of the pre-Internet era where this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived. I sat down with one of the authors, Anthony Pappalardo.

How did you first get into hardcore?

My youth was split between Lawrence, MA and Salem, NH (Not the witch town, the whiter lamer town) both a half hour away from Boston, MA . I followed that natural suburban chain: hard rock to metal to punk to hardcore. Hard rock wasn't hard enough, metal wore off quickly, I was over skulls and demons, punk was a major break though. Punk was funny, angry, simple, fast and the people playing seemed like any other fucked up kid to me. Punks weren't like the metal dude in the food court selling you dirt weed they were making fun of that dude for selling shitty weed in a mall. At thirteen skateboarding took over my life in the cold ‘burbs of New Hampshire. There wasn't an official spot or a skate crew to tag along with so finding out about skateboarding happened by finding information on your own, my friend lent me a copy of Thrasher, I subscribed and was hooked. Each month I had 30 days to absorb every page, word and feeling, it was a little light cracking through the wall and it wired me into a world, especially Pushead's column. My tastes gravitated towards hardcore, or hardcore punk or whatever you called it, it was Black Flag over the Exploited any fucking day. The older kids who could drive were going into Boston on the weekends to see hardcore matinees at the Rat and the Channel and skate the city. I saw my first real show Freshman year of High School, meaning a show not in a basement or garage with real bands. It was a freezing cold March day, we skated the city from about 10 AM until the show started that afternoon at about three, I entered the Channel and was handed a ‘zine with a bunch of interviews of bands I knew and didn't know along with a grip of flyers, a starter kit. I read a 2 page Judge interview about twenty times on the ride home and ordered everything I could afford from the ads in the 'zine. From that day on my mailbox was frantically checked for new arrivals, we'd figure out any way to get to Boston to buy records and skate and every show meant new friends, everything was growing exponentially. Once I got my license I burned through cars like skate decks because I was constantly driving these junkers from state to state and not taking care of them, every car I owed had a trunk full of fucking oil.

Chain of Strength at Spanky's 1989. Photo by Dave Sine

Aside from your love of the music, what pushed you to create the book?

We started plotting out the book around 2002/2003 and one thing we had that other books didn't at the time was a lot of history, perspective and resources. We both have backgrounds in art and knew that we wanted the book to showcase some of the images that inspired us, things that were getting overlooked. It was apparent that hardcore had seeped into everything in pop culture, including music, art and fashion. There was a story line that was screaming to us: before the internet really changed how we communicate hardcore was able to thrive and the limitations bred a lot of creativity we just needed to contextualize what other books weren't touching on or what they weren't able to address because they were created 10+ years ago. Nathan and I knew we could offer a fresh perspective and we had enough distance from what we were covering to do it objectively, we weren't telling our story we were documenting hardcore like human cameras. It felt like it was time to make a book that anyone could pick up, read and then understand what hardcore means to music and culture. Hardcore wasn't this secret club anymore that no one knew about, it was out there and being pilfered and without accurate documentation of it what can you expect? There can't be credit given if people don't know who to credit.

Inside Out at Gilman Street 1989. Photo by Dave Sine

What does Radio Silence offer that other books on the subject left out?

The book stretches into the 1990s and explains that hardcore doesn't "die", it moves in cycles. American Hardcore was accurate in that one cycle was done, the originators pollinated the world and as they broke up, persevered or explored different musical styles those seeds bloomed into a new crop. By the end of the 1980s you saw a new reaction and another new crop, this is going to continue to happen forever and it should. We also tried to show more than just one aspect of hardcore, we didn't focus on just flyers or just photography, we tried to give you a 360 degree view of a world and what made things tick. The narrative isn't based around the authors handing down the gospel, if there's a picture of Minor Threat, then Jeff Nelson, Ian MacKaye or someone directly linked to them is commenting on the photograph. We looked at ourselves as documentarians not authors, the parameters and restrain stretched into the layout and look of the book. We didn't create new art, we didn't use existing elements to tell new stories. The layout is secondary to the images, a photo of HR screaming to a handful of people in 1982 is the art not some bitmapped rendition of it with a shitty distracting font laid over it.

Bad Brains at Viceroy Park 1982. Photo by Rusty Moore

Aesthetically the book is really simple and clean. They layout almost contradicts the grittiness and raw energy of the photos and content of the book. Was this your intention?

One thing that bothers me is when I read a book about punk or hardcore and it looks like a ‘zine that was thrown together the night before a show. A bunch of dudes moshing at the Wilson Center is fucking chaotic and captures a mood, what could we really do to make that more insane with out distracting people from what's in the photo. We had to really pull back and almost overcompensate to really draw attention to the visuals, people should be soaking in every inch of the images, reading the text on a t-shirt, trying to figure out what the Circle Jerks' set list says, noticing if someone's shoe is untied. If we hand wrote all the text and ripped the edges of the photos it would look dated and would be us saying "Yo this is hardcore, ripping paper is fucking hardcore! DIY!" We weren't kids who were doing shit for the first time with glue sticks and dull scissors, we're grown men who wanted to document something inspiring and powerful, something that could stand next to a book on World War 2 and look as professional and make the subject matter carry the same weight as any other topic. Adults trying to "recapture" a time and place by doing their version of it wasn't our goal, we just wanted to document something in it's purest form, secondly there's no reason to put up any visual barriers, we wanted this to be neat and clean, something that focused on what inspired us, this rich and powerful world that hasn't been immortalized in print enough.

Black Flag at The Milestone 1981. Photo by Rusty Moore

I really like the fact that Radio Silence is visual history with small excerpts from people that were involved in the scene at the time. How did you decide upon this format?

Part of the intention was a nod to Banned In DC, which is such a fabulous book, and the second reason is because it gave a certain weight to each image. There have been thousands of people inspired by the sheep on the cover of Out of Step and I'm sure they all have amazing stories about that cover, those stories will continue to be told every time that record is flipped by in a collection or that page is turned in Radio Silence. Our intent was to ground those images and make people's stories more powerful, it was a huge "right on" to hear Cynthia Connolly talk about trying to draw the perfect sheep, it added a new dimension to the cover, it made it personal. We wanted to show the icons that we take for granted, that we've seen so much that they almost become static and reanimate them. Disclaimer - The Black Flag Bars and other icons don't need SHIT from us, they stand on their own but hopefully we could add something to these images but giving you more of the picture including the back story and origins of the roots of hardcore.

SSD at CBGB's 1983. Photo by Philin Phlash

You have some amazing content in Radio Silence including some classic photos as well original record graphics and production mechanicals. How hard was it to find some of this stuff? What image or photo were you most excited to receive for use in the book?

Every mechanical and unseen image was a thrill but getting Gail Rush's images of the Boston Crew a few weeks before the book was being sent to the printer was some next level shit. I was hung up on this thumbnail image of SSD on the Taang! site, a promo photo of the band hanging in Boston. JJ Gonson passed Gail's photos onto us and it really brought the Boston section to life, it spoke to me because these were Boston's forefathers fucking around with their crew on the same streets that I fucked around on, it was like finding an Antidote 7" a the Salvation Army for 25 cents or finding out you were adopted ...for real.

Boston Crew at Tufts Medical Center 1982. Photo by Gail Rush

You recently hooked up with Nike for a Radio Silence book release in Los Angeles that featured a performance by New York Hardcore legends the Cro-Mags. How did this happen?

Every step of this book revealed another embedded hardcore kid, Nike happens to have an extremely cool down to earth employee who handles their music marketing named Tim Bergevin who happened to have roadied for Ignite in the mid 1990s. We told Tim about the book and he came to us with the idea of doing a free all-ages show in Los Angeles, something that fathers could take their kids to, something that was a thank you to the hardcore scene. If you look at the book and look at people's feet you'll see boots, Chuck Taylors and Nikes. It was rad to show that dimension, I think that's what is unique to hardcore, there was a fashion aspect to hardcore just like punk but it was more indicative to what was going on in America, punk was showing what was coming out of fetish shops in the UK. We were lucky to have such amazing people behind us who were committed to putting on a fun event that everyone could attend and enjoy.

Cro Mags at The Ritz 1986. Photo by JJ Gonson

If you could put together a five band bill to represent Radio Silence, what bands would play and why?

Hopefully the book can stay in print for a long time so if we're doing a one off show to represent the book let's fill in the cracks with five incredible bands not really featured in Radio Silence but ARE Radio Silence, no particular order and since we'll be using the Crucial Time Machine we can pluck them out of their prime for the show:

Scream - completely essential, powerful and timeless but the only rad Scream pictures we had were from a semi-sketchy era w/puffy hair and acoustic guitars so it wouldn't have captured them the right way.

Black Flag with Keith Morris - Keith is in the book. Black Flag are in the book but not together and who the fuck wouldn't want to see this incarnation? Sorry Chavo and Dez

Die Kreuzen - Think of how fucking managed and destructive this band was, I'm thinking of pre-October File so you get some crazy prog riffs mixed with their harsh formula. Fuck my head is exploding thinking about it.

Burn - Burn is everything about the early 1990s that I want to remember, a great example of a band that is completely hardcore but really pushed the boundaries visually and sonically to create their own style.

Dag Nasty with Shawn Brown - I love Dag Nasty, I love Swiz, two epic things together , why the fuck not, people really sleep on this era of Dag, totally different than what you associate Dag Nasty with when you hear their name or see the flaming head but just as powerful.

I could go on forever putting dream bills together but this one is pretty epic.

www.radiosilencebook.com

Crippled Youth at The Ratt 1986. Photo by JJ Gonson

Labels: Radio Silence

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Saturday, June 13, 2009

TREVOR TRAYNOR

Thursday, June 4, 2009

RADIO SILENCE

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